Buenos Aires, Argentina — The Vice President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, hinted that she won’t be running in the upcoming presidential elections. During a speech on April 27, she criticized the International Monetary Fund and the campaign of libertarian candidate Javier Milei and analyzed the unstable economic situation of the country.
In an event in the city of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Fernández de Kirchner gave a speech for the first time since president Alberto Fernández announced that he wouldn’t be going for reelection later this year.
Political activists of her party had been calling for her to be the main candidate in the upcoming elections, as she would be the only candidate able to stand a chance against bitter rivals Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Javier Milei, two candidates that measure well in polls. “I already gave what I had to give,” she said.
Fernández de Kirchner has already been president of the country for two consecutive mandates between 2007 and 2015, and last year she was convicted in a corruption trial which would enable her to run for any public office, but the ruling is not yet final.
Everyone was expecting the Vice President to talk about the rivalry against the main opposition’s candidate, Rodríguez Larreta, prior to the elections, but she actually focused on talking about the projects and economic ideas of libertarian candidate Javier Milei, whose party seems to run third in the presidential race.
After two weeks of economic instability and jumps in the local USD rate, Milei and some of his associates proposed the full dollarization of the local economy as a solution to the country’s spiraling inflation. To which Fernández de Kirchner replied, “They come to tell us that what failed years ago, today can be the solution.”
“The issue is that dollarization is presented as the answer and the solution to inflation and if we see what happens in Ecuador, we see that inflation does not stop because of dollarization,” said the Vice President while showing charts about Ecuador’s economic situation.
When talking about Argentina’s debt with the International Monetary Fund, Fernández de Kirchner said that the payments agreement signed with the IMF is inflationary and questioned its conditions.
“What we want is for the conditionalities to be reviewed and I think that in the future we are going to have to ask that the amounts paid to the Fund be tied as a percentage to the trade surplus, because the only dollars we produce are those of the trade surplus,” she proposed.
The Vice President then closed her hour and a half speech by expressing her concern about the growth in popularity of the local libertarian party and the future of younger generations in case Javier Milei wins the presidency.
“I am afraid because my grandchildren might grow up in a country so unfair, so inequitable. I fear for the kids, the young people. Because there is too much cowardice and hypocrisy. We have to make a [economic] program so we can discuss these issues,” she closed.
